Turkish
pianist Fazil Say projects himself as an individualist,
setting himself apart from the usual concert-pianist
crowd. He even includes his own (here jazz-inspired)
compositions in recital and he tours his own
playback version of Stravinsky’s Rite of
Spring. Avidly supported by fellow country-persons
on the strength of the audience at the South
Bank, possessed of a high-profile recording
contract with Naïve, his reputation preceded
him (he seems to appear infrequently in the
UK - although see Marc Bridle’s review of
his recent recital with Vengerov).

The
first half of the present recital began with
a trio of Haydn keyboard sonatas – No. 48
in C; No. 46 in E; No. 35 in A flat. The first
boded well. Lively and cheeky, appealingly
alive to Haydn’s wit, fine control was in
evidence. Mobile as a player, Say certainly
looked as if he was enjoying himself, even
getting carried away and over-projecting the
treble on occasion (or being too robust in
the finale). The E major brought further doubts,
Say exhibiting a propensity for flicking at
chords and, again, periodically forcing the
tone of his Bösendorfer.

These
were readings of contradiction. On the one
hand careful preparation was audible (even
to the extent of carefully stage-managed hands-away-from-keys
gestures: Brendel does these better); yet
not every note of the finale of No. 35 spoke.

Ravel
might have been closer to Say’s heart, perhaps,
yet his sensitivity to the harmonic shifts
of the first movement of the Sonatine
was low, the top line was again over-projected
and more of those distracting physical movements
disappointed. The delicate Menuet held out
the most hope so far, a sensitivity that extended
to the finale’s tender reminiscence of the
first movement’s theme.

To close
the first half, Say played a five-minute composition
of his own, Black Earth (1997), based
on a popular song, Kara Toprak by the
Turkish singer-poet Asik Veyset. A dark, low
beginning was truly cavernous and led to the
use of various effects, plucked strings evoking
the Turkish saz.
But the work as a whole is possibly best described
as Radio Two jazz with a dopamine injection.
Any more than five minutes would have been
too much. Say has recorded this work on Naïve
V4954.

And
so to Say’s party-piece, the Rite of Spring.
Much has been made of Say’s solo performances
of the four-hand version of this piece, aided
and abetted by the Bösendorfer 290SE
computer technology. Effectively a pianola
for the twenty-first century, Say adds to
the Cageian effects produced by plucking or
striking the piano’s strings. A Stravinskian
prepared piano then (with live on-screen keyboard
relay), this made for interesting listening
(although I’m not sure I want to repeat the
experience).

Taking
away the orchestral colours means the rhythmic
element (so vital in this work anyway) is
even more foregrounded, yet the downside is
that the sheer visceral volume is lost. So
climactic trombone glissandi lose their effect
(although the use of piano-string glissandi
sounded for all the world like a crib from
one of Stockhausen’s early electronic works).

Of course
the hollow depth of the opening of Part II
was missing. On a performance level, the ‘Glorification
de l’élue’ just sounded like Say was
counting furiously!.

The
most successful moment was the ‘Evocation
des ancêtres’, Say creating quite an
aggregation of sound - yet the ‘Danse sacrale’
was more fun to watch than to listen to. Whilst
one can admire Say’s rhythmic sense, sheer
abandon was absent.

The
programme booklet quotes Say as saying, ‘What
matters to me is not who is playing on what
instrument but rather how that instrument
is being played’. An admirable (if somewhat
hackneyed) sentiment that Say failed to live
up to.